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an old acquaintance. "Why," said Mr. D- "you don't know who I am, do you ?”—“Yes, to be sure I do," said the madman,“ you are Mr. D-" Upon inquiry, it was discovered that this man had once seen Mr. D- about five and thirty years before at the old Bedlam Hospital. Thus it seems that the memory, at least, may remain unimpaired amidst the general wreck of the understanding.

hair was floating loosely about her shoulders, and she came tripping up to us, humming an air, and suddenly addressed us-" Did you know Sam Williams?-Ah! he was a sweet south. But then, do you know, they took him away to India, and there Warren Hasings killed him :-but I made him pay a guinea for it, that's what I did!" And then bursting out into a wild hysterical laugh, she turned away and ran off in another direction. Amongst the incurables, we saw a poor cracked creature, the miserable victim of nervosity. His fears had at last driven him out of his wits, and he was at this time a prey to the strongest paroxysms of apprehension. All day long he was crouching down and trembling, under an idea that the sky was about to fall; and he cried out to us-"Take care! Don't you see it shake? Now it is coming!" There was another man, who fancied himself in the family way, and was under ter

There are certain wards set apart for the reception of criminal lunatics. In one of these were assembled nine persons, every one of whom had committed murder; and it required no little exertion of nerve to feel at ease in such company. Amongst this class old Peg Nicholson was pointed out to us, who sometime in the last century attempted the life of King George the Third, and whose appearance, or rather apparition, after the lapse of so many years, seemed like a resurrection from the dead. Here, too, is Hatfield, who made a similar at-rible alarm with the notion that he was tempt at a later period; and here, also, are all those mischievous maniacs, whose histories have from time to time served to fill up a column in the public prints;-from the disappointed lover, who fired a pistol at Miss Kelly, to the disappointed half-pay officer, who took a flying shot at Lord Palmerston.

We were continually assailed with petitions for a few coppers for the purchase of snuff and tobacco; and many took us aside with coherent well-told tales of the treacherous devices by which they had been trepanned into a place of confinement;-some of which really sounded so probable, that if this were not known to be the commonest of delusions that prevail in these cases, it would have been difficult to withhold belief from such very circumstantial details. We had an example of the ruling passion, strong in madness as in death, in the reply of a poor dancingmaster, of whom we were inquiring whether he had any thing to complain of. "Complain of!" said he, "look at my shoes!"-which were certainly not of that light fantastic character to which he had probably been accustomed in his dancing-days. We were much struck, too, with a pretty interesting-looking girl who had gone mad for love. Her

about to be brought to-bed of a black boy. In short, it would be endless to recount all the strange and ridiculous delusions which we found possessing the distempered brains of the inhabitants of Bedlam, and ruling them with all the force of reality.

If there was any thing in the management of this asylum to which one might object, it is, perhaps, the unnecessary parade of locks and keys, and bars and bolts ;-but upon the whole, we were strongly impressed with the admirable regulations that prevailed throughout,

and of the excellent effects of kindness

and conciliation in mitigating the violence of this dreadful visitation. The admiration we felt was expressed in every language of Europe, by the various visitors from different countries, who had recorded their sentiments in the books of the hospital. I select one by way of example, from the late minister and ambassador of France.

"Cet établissement ne laisse d'autres maisons de la même nature en Europe ad vœux à former que celui de voir toutes les ministrées d'apres les mêmes principes et avec les mêmes soins; et je croirai avoir bien mérité de mon pays et de l'humanité, si je peux contribuer à faire suivre en France les règlemens en les plans de

Bethlehem qu'a bien voulu me promettre de me communiquer M. le Gouverneur, à qui

comme ami de la morale et de l'humanité. DE CAZES."

j'offre l'expression de ma reconnoisance, But we are surrounded with mysteries on every side, which baffle our inquiries, and the result of our boasted knowledge

Having concluded our survey, we were glad to escape from this melancholy scene. We had seen examples of almost every variety of mental derangement: Religious enthusiasts; political projectors ;-despairing lovers;-husbands frantic for the loss of their wives ;--wives for the loss of their husbands;-parents for the loss of their children. One only modification of grief seemed wanting,-there were no filial instances of the same effects being produced by the loss of parents. In reflecting upon this fact, however, we ought rather to admire the wise dispensation of Providence in thus constructing the human mind, than suppose the younger part of our species deficient in the kindly feelings of affection. In the natural course of events such excessive sensibility must have proved a constant source of misery. Happily it has been ordered otherwise :-and the reasoning that Shakspeare has put into the mouth of the hypocritical king of Denmark, has its just and reasonable effect on the most sensitive mind.

"The surviver bound

In filial obligation for some term
Performs obsequious sorrow: But to persevere
In obstinate condolement, is a course
Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief,
And shews a will most impious to Heaven."

What an awful impression does the contemplation of a spectacle like Bedlam leave upon the mind! How wonderfully, and yet how fearfully, are we made! There is no part of the mysterious subject of evil, with respect to its origin and purpose, that is so inexplicable as this;-and who can help exclaiming, why is it that we are mad?

"Is but to know how little can be known,”

If we endeavour to push our conjectures farther, and escape from the narrow circle, with which it has pleased Heaven to circumscribe our faculties, the attempt always ends in defeat and disappointment. We have, it is true, a glimmering of the world above us, but if we presume to imagine we can break the bars of our prison, and soar into these forbidden regions, what is the result? We exhaust our strength in fruitless efforts;-like an imprisoned blue-bottle, who, seeing the light without, tries to escape from the confinement of a room, and bangs himself with piteous violence against the window, humming and buzzing with increasing impatience at every successive failure of his hopes, till wearied out at last he sinks down into a corner, sore and crest-fallen, to brood in silence over his own ignorance and helplessness.

October 1. Letters from America,—— which summon me away. I should lament my departure more if I did not hope soon to renew my intimacy with a country in which I have met with so much hospitality and kindness. It is indeed lamentable to think that two nations so formed by nature to be friendly to each other, should have ever been at enmity. Let us hope that we shall both grow wiser as we grow older. Every tion would seem to bind America and impulse of feeling, and every consideraEngland together by the firmest ties of friendship: Those then whom God hath joined, let no man put asunder!”

New Monthly Magazine, Nov.
DIRGE FOR MUNGO PARK.
Air,Rousseau's Dream."

HOPE no more-in peace he sleepeth-
All his pains and toils are o'er;
'Tis thine eye alone that weepeth,

His is clos'd to ope no more.
He hath gain'd that unknown river,
He hath found a hero's grave;
There his head in peace for ever

Rests beneath the dashing wave.

We, like him, our barks are guiding
Swiftly to an unknown shore,
Here, we know, is no abiding,

There is rest for evermore.

Pilot through this mighty ocean!
Lord of earth, and air, and sea!
Thou canst still the wild wave's motion;
All our hopes are fix'd on thee.

"LE

(Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.)

THE FORGERS.

ET us sit down on this stone seat," said my aged friend, the pastor, "and I will tell you a tale of tears, concerning the last inhabitants of yonder solitary house, just visible on the hill-side, through the gloom of those melancholy pines. Ten years have passed away since the terrible catastrophe of which I am about to speak; and I know not how it is, but methinks, whenever I come into this glen, there is something rueful in its silence, while the common sounds of nature seem to my mind dirge-like and forlorn. Was not this very day bright and musical as we walked across all the other hills and valleys; but now a dim mist overspreads the sky, and, beautiful as this lonely place must in truth be, there is a want of life in the verdure and the flowers, as if they grew beneath the darkness of perpetual shadows."

As the old man was speaking, a female figure bent with age and infirmity, came slowly up the bank below us with a pitcher in her hand, and when she reached a little well dug out of a low rock all covered with moss and lichens, she seemed to fix her eyes upon it as in a dream, and gave a long, deep, broken sigh.

"The names of her husband and her only son, both dead, are chiselled by their own hands on a smooth stone within the arch of that fountain, and the childless widow at this moment sees nothing on the face of the earth but a few letters not yet overgrown with the creeping timestains. See! her pale lips are moving in prayer, and, old as she is, and long resigned in her utter hopelessness, the tears are not yet all shed or dried up within her broken heart,-a few big drops are on her withered cheeks, but she feels them not, and is unconsciously weeping with eyes that old age has of itself enough bedimmed."

The figure remained motionless beside the well; and, though I knew not the history of the griefs that stood all embodied so mournfully before me, I

felt that they must have been gathering together for many long years, and that such sighs as I had now heard came from the uttermost desolation of the human heart. At last she dipped her pitcher in the water, lifted her eyes to heaven, and, distinctly saying, "O, Jesus, Son of God! whose blood was shed for sinners, be merciful to their souls!" she turned away from the scene of her sorrow, and, like one seen in a vision, disappeared.

"I have beheld the childless widow happy," said the pastor, "even her who sat alone, with none to comfort her, on a floor swept by the hand of death of all its blossoms. But her whom we have now seen I dare not call happy, even though she puts her trust in God and her Saviour. Her's is an affliction which faith itself cannot assuage. Yet religion may have softened even sighs like those, and, as you shall hear, it was religion that set her free from the horrid dreams of madness, and restored her to that comfort which is always found in the possession of a reasonable being."

There was not a bee roaming near us, nor a bird singing in the solitary glen, when the old man gave me these hints of a melancholy tale. The sky was black and lowering, as it lay on the silent hills, and enclosed us from the far-off world, in a sullen spot that was felt to be sacred unto sorrow. The figure which had come and gone with a sigh was the only dweller here; and I was prepared to hear a doleful history of one left alone to commune with a broken heart in the cheerless solitude of nature.

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"That house from whose chimnies no smoke has ascended for ten long years," continued my friend, shewed its windows bright with cheerful fires; and her whom we now saw so woe-begone, I remember brought home a youthful bride, in all the beauty of her joy and innocence. Twenty years beheld her a wife and a mother, with all their most perfect happiness, and with some, too, of their inevitable

griefs. Death passed not by her door without his victims, and, of five children, all but one died, in infancy, childhood, or blooming youth. But they died in nature's common decay, peaceful prayers were said around the bed of peace; and when the flowers grew upon their graves, the mother's eyes could bear to look on them, as she passed on with an unaching heart into the house of God. All but one died, and better had it been if that one had never been born.

"Father, mother, and son now come to man's estate, survived, and in the house there was peace. But suddenly poverty fell upon them. The dishonesty of a kinsman, of which I need not state the particulars, robbed them of their few hereditary fields, which now passed into the possession of a stranger. They, however, remained as tenants in the house which had been their own; and for a while, father and son bore the change of fortune seemingly undismayed, and toiled as common labourers on the soil still dearly beloved. At the dawn of light they went out together, and at twilight they returned. But it seemed as if their industry was in vain. Year after year the old man's face became more deeply furrowed, and more seldom was he seen to smile; and his son's countenance, once bold and open, was now darkened with anger and dissatisfaction. They did not attend public worship so regularly as they used to do; when I met them in the fields, or visited them in their dwelling, they looked on me coldly, and with altered eyes; and I grieved to think how soon they both seemed to have forgotten the blessings Providence had so long permitted them to enjoy, and how sullenly they now struggled with its decrees. But something worse than poverty was now disturbing both their hearts.

"The unhappy old man had a brother who at this time died, leaving an only son, who had for many years abandoned his father's house, and of whom all tidings had long been lost. It was thought by many that he had died beyond seas; and none doubted, that, living or dead, he had been disinherited by his stern and unrelenting parent.

On the day after the funeral, the old man produced his brother's will, by which he became heir to all his property, except an annuity to be paid to the natural heir, should he ever return. Some pitied the prodigal son, who had been disinherited-some blamed the father-some envied the good fortune of those who had so ill borne adversity. But in a short time, the death, the will, and the disinherited were all forgotten, and the lost lands being redeemed, peace, comfort, and happiness were supposed again to be restored to the dwelling from which they had so long been banished.

"But it was not so. If the furrows on the old man's face were deep before, when he had to toil from morning to night, they seemed to have sunk into more ghastly trenches, now that the goodness of Providence had restored a gentle shelter to his declining years. When seen wandering through his fields at even-tide, he looked not like the Patriarch musing tranquilly on the works and ways of God; and when my eyes met his during divine service, which he now again attended with serupulous regularity, I sometimes thought they were suddenly averted in conscious guilt; or closeed in hypocritical devotion. I scarcely know if I had any suspicions against him in my mind, or not; but his high bald head, thin silver hair, and countenance with its fine features so intelligent, had no longer the same solemn expression which they once possessed, and something dark and hidden seemed now to belong to them, which withstood his forced and unnatural smile. The son, who, in the days of their former prosperity, had been stained by no vice, and who, during their harder lot, had kept himself aloof from all his former companions, now became dissolute and profligate, nor did he meet with any reproof from a father whose heart would once have burst asunder at one act of wickedness in his beloved child.

"About three years after the death of his father, the disinherited son returned to his native parish. He had been a sailor on board various ships on foreign stations-but hearing by chance of his father's death, he came to cla·

his inheritance. Having heard on his arrival, that his uncle had succeeded to the property, he came to me and told me, that the night before he left his home, his father stood by his bedside, kissed him, and said, that never more would he own such an undutiful son-but that he forgave him all his sins-at death would not defraud him of the pleasant fields that had so long belonged to his humble ancestors-and hoped to meet reconciled in heaven. "My uncle is a villain," said he, fiercely, "and I will cast anchor on the green bank where I played when a boy, even if I must first bring his grey head to the scaffold."

"I accompanied him to the house of his uncle. It was a dreadful visit. The family had just sat down to their frugal midday meal; and the old man, though for some years he could have had little heart to pray, had just lifted up his hand to ask a blessing. Our shadows, as we entered the door, fell upon the table-and turning his eyes, he beheld before him on the floor the man whom he fearfully hoped had been buried in the sea. His face was indeed, at that moment, most unlike that of prayer, but he still held up his lean, shrivelled, trembling hand. "Accursed hypocrite," cried the fierce mariner, " dost thou call down the blessing of God on a meal won basely from the orphan? But, lo! God, whom thou hast blasphemed, has sent me from the distant isles of the ocean, to bring thy white head into the hangman's hands !"

speech, but it was so unlike her usual voice, that I scarcely thought, at first, the sound proceeded from her white quivering lips.

"As you hope for

mercy at the great judgment day, let the old man make his escape-hush, hush, hush-till in a few days he has sailed away in the hold of some ship to America. You surely will not hang an old grey-headed man of threescore and ten years!"

"The sailor stood silent and frowning. There seemed neither pity nor cruelty in his face; he felt himself injured; and looked resolved to right himself, happen what would. "I say he has forged my father's will. As to escaping, let him escape if he can. I do not wish to hang him; though I have seen better men run up to the fore-yard arm before now, for only asking their own. But no more kneeling, woman.-Holla! where is the old man gone?"

"We all looked ghastily around, and the wretched wife and mother, springing to her feet, rushed out of the house. We followed, one and all. The door of the stable was open, and the mother and son entering, loud shrieks were heard. The miserable old man had slunk out of the room unobserved during the passion that had struck all our souls, and had endeavoured to commit suicide. His own son cut him down, as he hung suspended from a rafter in that squalid place, and, carrying him in his arms, laid him down upon the green bank in front of the house.There he lay with his livid face, and blood-shot protruded eyes, till, in a few minutes, he raised himself up, and fixed them upon his wife, who, soon recovering from a fainting fit, came shrieking from the mire in which she had fallen down. "Poor people!" said the sailor with a gasping voice,

"For a moment all was silent-then a loud stifled gasping was heard, and she whom you saw a little while ago, rose shrieking from her seat, and fell down on her knees at the sailor's feet. The terror of that unforgiven crime, now first revealed to her knowledge, struck her down to the floor. She fixed her bloodless face on his before" you have suffered enough for your whom she knelt-but she spoke not a crime. Fear nothing; the worst is single word. There was a sound in now past: and rather would I sail the her convulsed throat like the death- seas twenty years longer, than add rattle. "I forged the will," said the another pang to that old man's heart. son, advancing towards his cousin with Let us be kind to the old man.” a firm step, my father could not-—I alone am guilty-I alone must die." The wife soon recovered the power of 2L ATHENEUM VOL. 10.

"But it seemed as if a raven had croaked the direfal secret all over the remotest places among the hills; for,

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